On Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair (Cheerio Books, 2024)
In his 80th year, having left, Sinclair circles back towards London,
Admittedly not through back doors, but through the entrance
Of two galleries; in which, hung like Saints, as well as martyrs
To the myths which first scarred them, hang Francis Bacon,
John Deakin, and all of the other ghosts gathered in Iain Sinclair’s
Coterie. For this a biography which becomes something further
Than fiction; framing fact while Iain’s word-colours bubble
And burst on the page, for no-one can write as he does;
The prose stylist as painter and photographer too, like his subject,
Who is also soloist, sage, and harmonsier, as he transposes,
Transfigures and advances the form for each age.
Pariah Genius as a phrase and as this book’s title
Spans the greatest journey that any human can breach,
As all of society is contained in its scope, and the limits
We lick through potential. And as Sinclair’s private view
Becomes public, he reveals the secret Gods and the shadows
That only he can still reach. Our greatest writer? He’s one.
Alongside the fellows he follows. Alan Moore, Derek Raymond,
Chrises Petit and Torrance, Arthur Machen of course,
Swedenborg. Mystics of the mask placed over the modern;
Classicists for a future in which with language forsaken
Words and espousements will rouse once more from the morgue.
And Sinclair is Death’s dutiful servant scribing free while faithfully
Attending to Deakin. Unearthing (a la Alan M.) The Hidden Files
Of an age which is but a few decades done; as the Sinclairian shovel
Digs deeper, and where instead of soil and stone he strikes titles,
Including Derek Raymond’s lost memoir in which he too detailed
Soho and the origin story behind the Black Novel’s page.
I dug Iain’s dig, with its circuituous roots back to Malta
And to Dylan Thomas in the 40s. Patrick Hamilton’s shadow,
Sourced earlier still inks lost air. Just as Deakin’s photos reveal
An artists’ textured touch alongside a poet’s prod in the tapping
Of the smear and sheen and the stutter of the shutter release
Framing care. Everything becomes written of course as soon as
Memory makes it legend. Poetry pierces pictures. And everyone
Described herein becomes poet, of lens or line, brush, or act.
Sinclair shields them all, as he always does. Dream’s Defender.
As he writes and weaves montage and mosaic each story shimmers
With a force and a feeling strong enough to crack cataracts.
Orpheus himself varnishes as the underworld is resurfaced.
For Deakin dipped in the oil, piss and sperm spilt by Bacon,
And the Kray-dark tastes of those days. He was there when London
Was brylcreme and blood and the chipped porcelain made,
As each One-Man Empire crumbled. And Eye-Ess IS his shadow
Through Deakin’s daring and despite his long disarray.
This book is its own gallery, portraiting everyone to and fro
From Bacon’s 1962 Exhibition. The old Tate at Millbank becomes
A lost state of mind. Some bright Shangri-la, caught inside Deakin’s
Camera which Sinclair now develops. In the red light, image-water
Starts bleeding the gold this book finds. The sentences stun.
No-one can arrest the eye like this writer: ‘Fever dreams empty
the streets and let the old ghosts out.’ Man as music.
‘Croydon is a necessary penance. They live there under a compulsion.’
Drumroll, please. ‘Retrievals from chaos illuminate subsequent histories’
Thankyou, Iain. ‘The invisibly published enjoy a great privilege: they are
Beyond the reach of criticism.’ Art as ease. Sinclair’s words photograph
As he takes in everybody. As a former Film Student, soil worker
Trader in print, pundit, scribe, everyone slides though his ink,
From Gascoyne to Pinter whose No Man’s Land he transfigures
As those pre and postwar progressives drink their day dry
Yet imbibe on a continuing standard unsought and unreached
By anyone in the present. Here, Sinclair’s singing Pinter’s prosody
For all time. Deakin was a one-shot novelist. Sinclair is one
With each sentence. Nevermind his own novels, and meta-texts
By the score. He tells Deakin’s tale while tapping on Hirst’s
Huge window. And provides spine for Spooner by hosting
Harold’s generous aid for the (often pissed) and passed poets
That Deakin detailed through closed doors. Everyone is scorched
Here and stretched. Everyone fries beside Bacon. ‘In a punctured
Hampstead of the soul’ doom is blooming as David Archer,
Houses Deakin’s love and George Barker, superimposing
Their image on Pinter’s play. Faces scored into pigment
And print and time itself lifemask for us. As with Blake’s
Etched by Bacon, each visage as vision is a ghost skimmed
Stone on the Thames. Images of Keefe and Mackenzie’s
Long Good Friday vapour in, as the Dockland bowl brims
With bodies, and as this soul soup starts spilling,
Forgotten names bob like croutons along that great brown
Stew’s weeds and stems. All is dispensed in this book
As Deakin links every diner, from Colin MacInnes,
Jorge Leon, WS Graham, John Minton, Henrietta Moraes,
John Heath-Stubbs, from each drop in the dark bubbles care:
Elizabeth Smart, Dom Moraes. Muriel Belcher, Tom Baker
Elias Canetti, Vincent Van Gogh, David Hare,
Colquhoun and MacBryde, Michael Reeves, Daniel Farson,
Bruce Bernard, William Empson, Joan Littlewood;
No-one’s spare, with each tainting time in this tome
Which is a biog-bro to Peter Ackroyd’s London,
Where instead of location, vocation and attendant voice
Chronicles how everyone wins a word prize. Deakin caught
Them all in his glare, Sinclair sits beside, scribing swiftly,
Taking us both up and Downriver, Lights on (and out)
For all Territories as his new Orbital oracles. For there is
In this book, all of the books Sinclair’s written. In having
Returned from the Congo he must once more reengage
With the streets from which the Gold Machine was first dreamt,
And a life’s practice fashioned; one bred from books sold
And written, from books that remain incomplete; by which
I refer to the dreamt, and Sinclair remains our best Sandman;
He can convey like no other the Lost’s resonance and their worth.
He is a Don Quioxte aware of each dream day drawn before him,
As well as a Sancho Panza keeping raised feet close to earth.
Pariah Genius marks two worlds, and both contain ruin,
But in what has passed as he’s raking Sinclair sees palaces.
He glimpses them in the light of the Poetry Library window,
And the Colony Room’s ghost gin glasses which become
Grail-like chalices. Sinclair scours all through his search,
As traipses and trails beside Deakin. From the French House
To Brighton, from sea-scape via strain, to deterioration
And decay, Heaven and Hell intermingle. As what was bright
Is blurred always when the hangover spikes the smudged brain.
And so one man’s story is told through a cityscrape of other people.
Criminals, lovers, the designated dead, prostitutes, who fucked,
Or failed remain the earthly compromise of all angels, sucking
Man’s sins to spit secrets; as this is what this book constitutes:
The classic drift of a time and of a sea ever turning. This is what
We hear in a seashell: the shipping forecast of the past.
To which Sinclair tunes. Behind that sound Deakin’s snapping.
And performing a radio play in soul-static made with a truly
Glorious cast. In John Deakin’s unsteady finger caress
e brushes Bacon and George Dyer’s nipples. In the camera
Click, crap is cutting and Raymond’s uppered crust finds its fall.
This Genius hung a ghost gallery, full of Screaming Queens,
Popes and Poets. This book becomes Boho’s Bible, burning
Through, singeing, singing. A scavenger can be sacred.
Shelter them on shelves. Light your wall.
David Erdos 23/2/24
Photos by kind permission or Anonymous Bosch
PARIAH GENIUS by Iain Sinclair will be published by Cheerio on April 25th 2024
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